Dreambaby® Bath and Personal Products

I'm a safety nut.  It drives the Pickle (4.5-years-old) crazy, but I am very wary of her surroundings.  I don't want to be oppressive and crazy, but I also don't want her unnecessarily cutting her head open.

One of the hardest places to make and keep safe is the bathroom.  As the littles gain their independence in there, they're naturally more curious and adventurous.  The problem is that they're still so little that all of those sharp edges can be dangerous.  I did some research looking for one company that had items for the entire bathroom.  I came across Dreambaby® (LINK), and didn't need to look any further. 

I got the chance to review some of their products, and they're just great!  

First I reviewed the Dreambaby® Anti-Slip Mat.  It retails at $17.99 (LINK).

 

Even before I put the mat in the tub, I was impressed.  It's made to withstand little tiny feet stomping on it and squirming around on it without being rough or abrasive.  It has texture to help avoid slipping, but is smooth enough to be easy-to-clean.  Plus, it was cute - Pickle has been learning about coral reefs in preschool this week, so she discussed each of the animals on it in length (taking particular care to inform me that kangaroos don't swim.  Good to know.).

I took it up to the bathroom and put it in the tub - it was just the right size for our standard-sized tub in the kids' bathroom.  The suction cups were strong, but not so rigid that they didn't grip the bottom of the tub.  I started filling up the tub, and purposely made the water too hot - the cute little starfish changed color when the water was too hot!  Not only is that a great visual indicator for me, but Pickle loved watching for it to change back to the safe zone.  That kept her busy and from climbing all over the bathroom, which is happiness you can't buy.  

(Tip - the bath mat isn't on here at this time, but Dreambaby® has videos up for a lot of their products on their YouTube channel here:  LINK.  Their Facebook page also has a lot of good information and is updated often:  LINK.)

I really liked the bath mat, and would definitely recommend it to others.  The color changing is my favorite feature, and definitely one I have used.

I also got the chance to test out their Easy-Clean Potty Seat, which retails for $8.99 (LINK).  

This is a really great price for a potty seat, so I was excited to check it out.  It coordinates with the bath mat, which was adorable!  I also noticed upon opening the package that it's small in size - other potty seats that I have seen are a lot wider and thicker, which makes them hard to jam in the diaper bag when you're going out of the house.  This is small, but padded enough to be comfortable on little bottoms.

The other two features that were unique to the Dreambaby® seat were both great.  First of all, it has handles on the side for the child to grip.  These were awesome for Pickle as she was climbing up onto the seat and turning around.  I also really like the splash guard in the front - we don't need it yet for Pickle, but it will be wonderful when our little boy Peanut is older, so that we don't get have the firehose effect all over our bathroom.

The last item that I got to test out was the Bath Tub Spout Cover (LINK), which retails for only $2.99.

Again, this is very inexpensive for a faucet cover, so I was excited to try it out.  It's inflatable, so it's easy to store when not in use, or to take to a hotel when traveling.  It fit our standard-sized spout without any issues.  It inflated enough to protect little heads from getting hurt on the faucet, but wasn't obtrusive or garish.  The cover was cute, and went with the blues in the other two items.

All in all, I'm excited about these three items!  They're cost-effective ways to protect your child in one of the most dangerous rooms in the house, and they all have innovative features that I haven't seen on comparable products.  I'm going to be searching Dreambaby's other products (like safety gates, car safety items, and more) to help babyproof now that our little Peanut is more mobile.  Great company!

Crane Drop Shape Cool-Mist Humidifier

Pickle, our 4-5-year-old daughter, gets recurrent croup.  She’s gotten it dozens of times since she turned one, so we’ve sort of done it all.  We’ve stood her in front of the freezer during coughing fits, we’ve stood in a steamy bathroom, we’ve inclined her bed, we’ve done countless rounds of oral steroids and a nebulizer.  All of them have worked in varying degrees to help stem her symptoms after the croup has already started – and it usually starts any time she gets a cold with any sign of a cough.  Per our pediatrician and pulmonologist’s recommendations, we have also utilized a cool-mist humidifier.  We have used it both before symptoms showed up and after the croup has begun in hopes of either preventing or shortening the duration of the illness – studies have shown that cool mist is best for this.

The first time Pickle got croup, we went to Wal-Mart and got the first cool-mist humidifier we saw.  We landed on the Safety 1^st Ultrasonic Humidifier.  Ours is a little older model than this one, it ran about $25:  LINK  We liked that it was ultrasonic, so there was no expensive filter to change – so, even though it was sorta plain and ugly, we figured it was worth it.  It was also pretty quiet, which was nice.  We used it for about a week when we first noticed that it started leaking.  By leaking, I mean it was leaking everywhere from the base, not just some condensation from the spout.  In addition to this electrocution hazard, we also were disturbed that the auto shut-off didn’t work on ours when it ran out of water – I usually would have to get up in the middle of the night to turn it off, rather than risk it overheating.  We continued to use it, but it wasn’t a great solution.

I started doing a lot more research when searching for a new humidifier, as I wanted to get something that would work better and be safer.  I read time and time again about how Crane (www.crane-usa.com) had the best value for their humidifiers.  I was recently lucky enough to get to try out a Crane Drop Shape Humidifier in orchid and white (LINK):

It is adorable, and the pink and white go just perfectly with Pickle’s pink-and-brown bedroom.  However, there are a ton of other colors – prices range from about $40 at retailers like Amazon, Target, and Wal-Mart, up to about $55 for the harder-to-find colors.  They are ultra-sleek and modern, and very appealing to my girly-girl.  However, if you have a wee one who wants something a little more traditionally “cute,” check out their Adorable Animals line of humidifiers for the cutest elephants, monkeys, frogs, and more to ever help your children breathe easier.

As it happened, Pickle just happened to come down with a cold within days of when we got the humidifier.  (Lousy Midwest weather.)  As I mentioned before, her colds almost always evolve into croup.  That weekend, we had birthday parties, soccer practice, meetings, and more – the poor girl just didn’t have the time to be down-and-out with respiratory issues.  

We got the Crane humidifier out, and set it up in her room.  First of all, it looks adorable – a vast improvement over the previous humidifier we had.  Although it’s incredibly simple to set up, I recommend following the directions in order to get the best results from your humidifier.  We set it up about three feet off of the ground in order to get the best circulation of air.  Per the directions, we also adjusted the spray so as not to accumulate water at the base – although we put it on a waterproof surface, we really didn’t need to.  There was no leaking or water accumulation – again, we were well ahead of the Safety 1^st model we’d used previously.  It was quiet as a mouse, and it wasn’t big and oppressive in her room.  

One of my favorite features is that the auto shut-off actually worked – I didn’t have to get up in the middle of the night and ninja off the humidifier without waking my daughter.  If I hadn’t read the directions, it might have confused me a little bit that the light remained on to indicate that the unit was still receiving power.  The functioning auto shut-off was another big win for me over the previous humidifier!  

One more thing I’d like to note from the instruction manual and the Crane website – no medications are to be used in the unit.  This includes essential oils, if you’re an “oily” house.  There are hacks on YouTube and blogs on how to add oils to the Crane humidifier, but it is not manufactured for use with them and is strongly discouraged.

So… after all of this, I’m sure you’re wondering if starting the Crane humidifier at the onset of Pickle’s cold kept away from the croup.  Well, take a look at this face from that birthday party I mentioned – could a girl with a restricted airway work a trumpet with this much style?

My First Crayola Safety Scissors

In preschool, the Pickle does a ton of crafts that involve cutting and pasting.  We do some at home, but I hadn’t been able to find any scissors that I really felt okay with her using even with supervision, so we had mostly focused on painting and other fine-motor skills at home.

A couple of months ago, I was at a store that rhymes with Schmarget, and found Crayola’s “My First Crayola Safety Scissors” – I couldn’t find them on their website, so here’s a link from Amazon:  LINK

The premise of these (and you get a pretty good deal for it, three pair for about $5) is that these scissors should only cut paper and cardstock – not clothes, lampshades, eyelids, or any of the numerous things that small children attempt to cut on a regular basis.  They’re made of plastic, no metal, and they’ve got rounded edges.  Hence, even stabbing motions to, say, a leather couch should theoretically not meet with any destruction.  (I should qualify that nobody in our house has actually attempted this, but I can’t see it being possible.)

Overall, these work awesome.  We did have one accidental mishap where Pickle was trying to cut something while holding it up in the air and accidentally got a tiny bit of hair (so they do cut hair), but overall they’ve been working really well.  I don’t feel like I’m abandoning her to a deathtrap if I have to turn away for five seconds to get her a new piece of construction paper. 

Additionally, they’re really a pretty great price.  For $5, you get three pairs.  This is nice if you’re having a playdate or if you have multiple children.  I figured safety scissors like this would be more expensive than normal scissors, but they’re not at all.  They haven’t broken yet despite some pretty heavy use, so they seem durable.

 

Value:  About $5 for three pair.  This, in my opinion, is a pretty great deal when a single pair of metal children’s scissors usually runs about $3.  10/10.

Child entertainment level:  This was very high for us.  The Pickle loves to cut paper into teeny little pieces more than I can even fathom.  9/10.

Practicality:  In my opinion, this was very practical.  Safe, economic, and worked well.  10/10.

Car Seat Covers

I've always thought I was really militant about car seat safety.  I researched car seats thoroughly before little A was born.  We got the Chicco Keyfit (which we LOVED) as her infant seat, and went with a Britax Advocate 70 CS (the top of the line at the time - great seat, but a different post) for her convertible when she outgrew it.

We live in the midwest, so winters get really cold.  I saw the JJ Cole BundleMe (LINK), and got one immediately:

We actually got a thinner one than this, the Lite, but the issue is the same, as a friend told me - nothing should go between a child and their carseat.  It's a hazard, and it can also make it so that you can't file an insurance claim if you're in an accident, since you're not using the seat properly.  This is a great item for strollers and the like, it's just not an approved device for a carseat.  Since this was a hazard, we stopped using it immediately - and I became even more vigilant than I already was about car seat safety!

Since A was so little and still in her infant seat, we tried another JJ Cole product.  We used the Car Seat Cover (LINK):

We loved this item, and it was entirely safe.  It is called a "shower cap" style cover because it works just like a shower cap - as shown in the photo above, you simply put it over the top of the car seat.  It's got an elastic band that squeezes around where it gets narrower.  Nothing goes between the baby and the car seat, and it unzips easily so that you can get the baby in and out without removing the cover every time.  Ours was an older model and it had a piece of velcro up by where the top of the baby's head is, and that's an additional way that it kept the wind from getting in.  It doesn't look like this newer model has that, which is too bad, as it was one of my favorite features until I got fuzz from blankets in the velcro enough that it didn't work anymore.  I am guessing that someone crafty could easily sew that in, however.  (I wish I were that person.)

At $29.99 it was a little more expensive than, say, the generic ones you can get at Wal-Mart, but this one is very durable, had the zipper and the velcro, and was a little thicker.  We would put baby A in the seat, clip her in, cover her up with a receiving blanket (or six, depending on how butt-cold it was that day), zip up the cover, and then velcro it up.  We didn't need anything else that entire winter (which is good, since coats are also not recommended in car seats).  

The next problem came the next winter, when she was in a convertible seat.  The cover didn't fit that, so we needed to look for something for her to wear directly.  We started with a Car Seat Poncho (LINK), about $39.99:

Little A was about 17 months around this time, and VERY active.  I loved the idea of the car seat poncho - you put the little in the car seat, buckle them in, and put this over the top of the car seat.  It can get them from the house to the car while staying warm enough, and you can put an additional blanket over them both on the walk and in the car.  

As I mentioned, A is active - and stubborn.  She had zero desire for this to be over her arms hampering her from whatever she wanted to be doing (oftentimes shredding paper all over the backseat).  Usually she tore it off in about three minutes.  And since she had also kicked off the blanket, she was left with not much warmth protection.  Since we keep the car plenty warm, that wasn't much of an issue inside of the car, really, but it meant sort of a struggle when getting her in and out when she didn't want to put the poncho back on.  Trying to wrap a flailing child in a poncho was not as easy as it sounds.  The theory of the poncho is absolutely great, though, it just didn't work in our particular household.

What we ended up with what an Osh Kosh B'Gosh/Carters 3-in-1 jacket.  I can't link it, as they don't seem to have them on the shelves yet for winter, but the theory is pretty simple.  You have an inner jacket that is Thinsulate on the interior with a waterproof shell outside.  Then, you also have a thicker outer coat that zips onto the inner shell for double warmth.  We would wear the thin inner jacket in the car (as it was car seat-safe), and then put on the thick outer jacket right before we took her into stores, daycare, preschool, whatever.  We've been doing this system the last two winters, and it works quite well.  Carters and Osh Kosh have huge sales pretty regularly on their website and in stores, so I could pace myself and pick it up at a cheaper price than the $60 or so at which it was regularly listed.  I'm sort of hoping that she can still wear hers from last winter again this winter, since we bought one a little big back then (I think).  I should probably pull it out and see.  

I noticed upon reviewing these blogs that it must seem like I buy a lot of junk and then it doesn't work...